Our work on South Cascade Glacier is focused in three areas: studies of
the subglacial hydrology, ice thickness and bedrock
mapping, and radar system development for temperate glacier and
Antarctic research. During the field seasons '96-'99 we developed two new radar systems: a
lighweight transmitter and receiver unit which can be deployed in steep
and heavily-crevassed terrain where sled-based systems cannot operate,
and a faster profiling radar based on a newly available 100 MHZ
digitizing board which resides on the PCI bus of a ruggedized computer.

The lightweight system was used on South Cascade Glacier in the summer
of 1998 to determine ice volumes flowing into the main glacier from a
steep hanging-glacier tributary
. It was
also used recently to determine ice volumes and bedrock topography of
Brewster Glacier in the Southern Alps of New Zealand
. Brewster Glacier is a Southern Hemisphere cousin to South
Cascade Glacier, lying at nearly the same latitude and elevation, and
having a similar ice volume, thickness and climatic regime.

During the summer of 1999 we completed field tests of our new profiling radar which uses a
12-bit digitizer and can stack (average) up to 500 radar echo waveforms
each second. The ability to stack radar echoes very rapidly increases
the signal to noise ratio, and enables us to resolve very faint internal
echoes within the ice. The radar
was used on the ITASE traverse in Antarctica.

We also have GPS surveying
capability with a C/A code base station and roving unit to give absolute
elevations and positions along our radar
profiles to sub-meter precision.

Trials of the radar system improvements in each year have been carried
out in conjunction with ongoing work on South Cascade in
collaboration with the USGS to map the bedrock and radar brightness as
an indication of the presence of water. In the early 1990's we conducted
profiles in the upper basin of South Cascade to complete the mapping
project. In 1994 we used the radar to make a detailed
map of the bed as part of the site selection process for a core to
bedrock drilled by the USGS. At this point, the radar data have been
processed and we have produced maps of ice thickness and bed topography
for the entire glacier.